Madness and Murdoch

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The President will give a news conference later this morning, although I’ll be surprised if he has any big announcements about the resolution of the debt ceiling impasse. I understand he’s pretty much punted the ball back to Congress and told them they’ve got hours to make a deal.

Steve Benen and Paul Krugman both note that Republicans are rejecting offers that the White House took out of the GOP playbook. Benen wrote,

Obama was willing to trade needless tax subsidies, some of which even Republicans don’t like, for a separate tax cut that benefits private employers. This is, as of last week, exactly the kind of deal GOP leaders said they were inclined to support.

But when the president put it on the table, and set up the deal exactly as Republicans want it, they still said no. And remember, a payroll tax cut is the GOP’s preferred approach to job creation.

Krugman writes,

… the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

So I have no idea how this impasse will, or can, be broken. Do read Andrew Leonard’s primer for teabaggers on what will happen if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

Rupert Murdoch’s British press empire is in meltdown. British politicians are dissociating themselves from Murdoch as fast as they can.

However, I am skeptical the same would ever happen in America, even if a recently launched FBI investigation finds that Murdoch’s minions hacked 9/11 families. I’m betting that even now loyalists are putting together reasons why such hacking was justified. And I can already see Little Lulu leading the charge to smear and demonize anyone who was hacked.

So I think this British writer is wrong — if the FBI finds that the phones of 9/11 families were hacked, Fox News will not be finished. Too many politicians and bureaucrats owe their careers to Murdoch. They may be able to bring him down in Britain, but IMO he’s untouchable here.

11 thoughts on “Madness and Murdoch”

  1. I don’t think 9/11 will some kind of a tipping point for the MSM regarding Murdoch.
    I mean, Coulter and Beck said some horribly vile things, and there no repercussions except from the left blogosphere – which is like asking ‘if a leaf falls in the forest, does it make a sound?”

    Only if something so egregious is discovered, that it boggles even the minds of the cowed, compliant, and complicit MSM.
    Something like discovering that while they were in flight, Roger Ailes was found to have been sending the GPS coordinates for the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, or that Murdoch was talking over his cell phone to the pilots over PA and is heard asking them, “What’s rolling?”

    Now, if FOX is found to have been kidnapping and killing the young white women, THAT might get some attention. Or helping Susan Smith and Casey Anthony dispatch their children. But, then, maybe the other news outlets will cover by saying, “Hey, we understand. It was a slow news day.”

    Besides, FOX News is everyone’s soft landing spot after they screw up, or go mental. Dick Morris and Juan Williams landed rather nicely. I expect Halperin on there any day now. And Howard Kurtz needs them as a safety valve in case he puts his foot in this mouth – again.

    And ‘Murderoch’ ain’t stupid. I’m sure that, like J. Edgar Hoover, he’s got salacious, damaging, or illegal stuff about politicians and MSM members in his closet – minus the dresses and the Ruby Red “F*ck Me!” pumps that kept old Clyde Tolson coming back for more.

    I think Ol’ Rupe will ride out the storm nicely.

  2. I’m worried about how the debt-ceiling stuff plays out. McConnell’s proposal seemed like a bit of sunshine, particularly if it can be simplified into what I think they’re calling a “clean McConnell” proposal, but when I think that it would have to pass the House, I despair. We’d need every Democratic vote, and Obama still doesn’t acknowledge that he burned the loyalty of the Progressive caucus on the extension of the Bush tax cuts in December, and is likely to craft a deal they won’t take, especially if they can blame failure on the GOP. And even with the progressives, they’d need some sane Republican votes, and those are scarce. I have a feeling the GOP posturers have dug themselves a hole they can’t climb out of now that they want to.

    Buckle up.

  3. May be wishful thinking on my part, but I’m hanging my hopes on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. No matter how many low friends Murdock has in high places, that’s a pretty hard one for the DOJ to ignore. Too, Brooks has resigned; Murdock has withdrawn his bid to take over B-Sky-B; investigations are underway in the U.K., India and Australia; in the U.S., stockholders have filed a civil suit against Murdock for malfeasance or nepotism–I forget exactly what; and The Wall Street Journal has suffered a serious blow to its once prestigious reputation.

    More shoes will drop in England before this is all over and lawsuits will fly thick and fast. Were it not for the Internet, corporate media may have been able to keep this under wraps in the U.S. but this is something they cannot ignore without shredding the last remnants of public trust they have here. Methinks Murdock’s empire is just beginning to bleed, but the sharks are already gathering.

  4. maha – appreciated the link to Andrew Leonard’s article. Reading through it I realized that the ramifications of not raising the debt limit, defaulting on our obligations sort of paralleled what would have happened to the economy if there had been no government bail-out of the financial sector etc. in ’08, ’09 – and of course there’s no one in the ‘wings’ ready or able to bail out the US government.

    At this point it’s clear that the Tea Baggers, and about 1/3 of the American electorate, are suffering from severe cases of cognitive dissonance – that is, any uncomfortable feelings (like the consequences of not raising the debt limit) caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously makes for dissonance. To reduce the discomfort (dissonance) one justifies, blames and denies any views which conflict with the view that comforts him.

  5. Off topic, but why would the President propose a means test for Medicare? For Democrats it changes the philosophy of Medicare and for the Tea Bagger party it amounts to a tax increase. Curious and to subtle for me to figure out.

    • Ed — I’m not sure he proposed a means test; I think he said he would consider one, to keep the program solvent. Some moderate means test would be preferable to raising the eligibility age, IMO.

  6. OT, but funny:
    The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf attended the premier yesterday of the new Sarah Palin documentary in Orange County, California, generally a Republican area. He was just about the only person in the theater.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/sarah-palin-movie-debuts-to-empty-theater-in-orange-county/241983/

    So, basically, outside of Conor and a couple of young women who didn’t know what it was about and stumbled in thinking it was an action flick, “The Undefeated,” was ‘Unattended.’.

    • c u n d gulag — whoever scheduled that premier for the same weekend Harry Potter hits the theaters was no genius.

  8. “…Fox news is everyone’s soft landing spot…….”
    How true. And Eric Cantor is the Eric Cartman of Washington.
    I expect Mr. Eric to have a FOX spot shortly.

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